Bankrupt

If it was a private company, I reckon it would have had to cease trading and go into liquidation.

Labour cash crisis could bankrupt party leaders | Politics | The Guardian: "The party has five weeks to find £7.45m to pay off loans to banks and wealthy donors recruited by Lord Levy, Tony Blair's former chief fundraiser, or become insolvent. A further £6.2m will have to be repaid by Christmas - making £13.65m in all. The sum amounts to two-thirds of the party's annual income from donations.

The figures are a conservative estimate as they do not include interest that will also have to be paid. A Labour source said that although the total debt was listed as £17.8m on the Electoral Commission website, the true level, with interest, was nearer to £24m.

The possibility that party officials and members of its national executive committee could become liable is being taken seriously by union leaders, and has been underlined by the decision of equity fund chairman David Pitt-Watson not to accept the post as Labour's general secretary.

Though he was Brown's candidate for the post, he declined the offer after receiving independent legal advice that he would be personally liable for repaying the loans and could be bankrupted if Labour's finances collapsed.

The advice from City solicitors Slaughter and May said unequivocally that leading party officials and members of the NEC would be ' jointly and severally' responsible for the party's debt."

Around Scotland - Monday 26 May 2008

Published in the Morning Star

(Monday 26 May 2008)

MALCOLM BURNS reviews the latest goings-on north of the border.

Tory independence

DAVID Cameron's first stop after the rout of Crewe was Scotland. He popped up at the Scottish Tories' conference in Ayr last Friday to say that he didn't just want to be the Prime Minister of England.

"I want to be Prime Minister of the United Kingdom - all of it, including Scotland."

But, as Labour stares down the barrel of the electoral gun and the real possibility of Gordon Brown losing the next Westminster election grows, the winners in Scotland will not be the Tories.

The irony is that SNP First Minister Alex Salmond would welcome a Tory victory. He will believe that the revulsion in Scotland at such an outcome can drive enough people into the pro-independence camp.

For the truth is that the Tories are still almost universally hated in Scotland.

David Cameron is not so stupid that he doesn't recognise this.

"If Alex Salmond thinks there's some clever game he can play about building on Scottish resentment against a Conservative government in England to help break up the Union, forget it," he told the Herald.

"I will do everything I can to stop that from happening."

So, just what is Cameron's secret plan for defusing the independence time bomb?

He claims that a Conservative government will govern the whole of the United Kingdom, including Scotland, "with respect."

Maybe someone should tell George Galloway!

In fact, like the SNP, the Tories have been playing their own nationalist card. English nationalist, that is.

It's a dog-whistle sort of nationalism which is dressed up in Cameron's supposedly touchy-feely multifaith multicultural unionism.

There are clear hints of how the Tories would "respect" the non-English parts of Britain.

Cameron plans to "review" the Barnett formula. That is "review" with a strong hint of "scrap."

And there is the impression which has been given that there will be "English votes for English laws."

The Barnett formula is not the Scottish or Welsh cash cows that the English Tory backwoodsmen like to portray. Nor is the West Lothian question on everyone's lips. Polls continue to show that Scots do not favour independence.

But a platform of cutting Scottish public spending and stopping Scottish MPs from voting in Westminster would certainly raise the stakes.

Cameron could well be Salmond's best hope.

The slow death of new Labour

Meanwhile, the Tory leader also claimed that the Crewe by-election spelled the end of new Labour.

Well, perhaps. Those of us who never loved the Blair-Brown-Mandelson project in the first place are not upset at any death notice of new Labour.

I would say that an earlier nail in its coffin was the Scottish defeat for Labour a year ago.

The Crewe campaign looks from this distance to have been run with even more spectacular ineptitude. It is never a guarantee of success to parachute in a candidate, even the offspring of a respected deceased member.

The crude scaremongering tactics were all too reminiscent of last year's negative Holyrood campaign - run by London - which so dismally failed Scottish Labour.

TV, radio, papers and blogs are now full of the self-important speculation of Straw, Clarke, Milburn - heaven help us - and the Milibroons as to whether anyone can mount a leadership challenge against an apparently unelectable Gordon Brown and which of them it should be.

It is clearer than ever that Labour needs to change.

There is definitely a crisis of leadership. But, despite their continuing dismal personal poll ratings, neither Brown nor Wendy Alexander have obvious successors.

At the same time, having both been shoo-ins with no democratic contest, they lack the key element of legitimacy which winning an election confers.

Not a good outcome.

But, even if it was possible, just changing the leader, either in Scotland or London, will not solve the problem.

To crown the catastrophe, Labour is virtually bankrupt. The millionaires have fled, a sure sign that new Labour is over. Good riddance.

The tab for a party which was set up to represent the working classes can now only be met by the affiliated unions, to which the party should now be listening.

And Labour needs to listen, all right, and act. The people, not just in Crewe, are saying: "We don't trust you."

They are asking, how could a Labour government increase taxes on the poorest to give tax breaks to wealthier people?

How can you justify low pay and below-inflation pay rises for public-sector workers?

How can you be closing our local post offices?

How can you be such Tories?

It's not an easy thing to recover trust when it's been lost. It can only be done by doing the right thing often enough over a long enough period of time.

The agenda is there. It is in Brendan Barber's call last week for a change in Labour's DNA. It is in the progressive policies of affiliated trade unions. It is in the May Manifesto which John McDonnell has published - you can find it at www.johnmcdonnell.org.uk or email info@l-r-c.org.uk for a copy.

The somewhat misplaced hope which greeted Brown when he became Prime Minister last year was that he would be different to Blair.

That's the hope that Labour needs to fulfil over the next couple of years if it is to win.

Cuba contradiction

Cuban representative Teresita Trujillo was in Edinburgh last Thursday with the Scottish Cuba Solidarity Campaign.

Her agenda included discussions at Holyrood with government ministers.

Spotting the Scottish Cuba Solidarity team in the parliament, a senior Labour politician came over and told Ms Trujillo that "we have a special place in our hearts for Fidel."

Setting aside the possible ambiguity - certain Miami gangsters might also say that kind of thing - it is always good to hear warm words for Cuba, especially from Labour policians.

Perhaps they could translate this into action by way of stonger support for Cuba's campaign to have the illegal US blockade lifted.

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Mon the reds

BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Moscow Diary: Football fever: "Nobody supports Chelsea here. Many dislike Abramovich and his oligarch cronies. But Man U is not better, just because it has a glamorous image. So I would support no one.
Ruslan, Moscow"

Around Scotland - Monday 19 May 2008

Published in the Morning Star

(Monday 19 May 2008)

MALCOLM BURNS reviews the latest goings-on in Scotland.

Plain common sense

ACCORDING to a BBC poll before the Scottish election a year ago, public finance for public projects was thought to be the most important of all election issues by the public themselves.

One of the Scottish National Party's most popular policies in that election - indeed, one of the main reasons why they were successful - was their promise to end the private finance initiative and fund public projects through public finances.

At least that's what we thought we heard them say.

But the plan that Finance Secretary John Swinney produced for a Scottish Futures Trust turned out not to be a clear end to PFI.

Instead, fearful of European legislation and with big city advisers whispering in his ear, Swinney proposed a trust dominated by private financiers and a funding method described optimistically as "non-profit distributing."

The vague plan met with much criticism, led by Scottish public-sector union UNISON. And, as the implications have become clearer, it has become progressively less attractive.

Even First Minister Alex Salmond himself told the STUC congress last month that the traditional public finance route had been shown to be "the best, most effective method of financing available ... better than PFI and better, too, than the 'non-profit distributing' method" for funding the massive new Southern General Hospital in Glasgow.

The Scottish Futures Trust plan is now being scrutinised by the Scottish Parliament finance committee.

UNISON Scottish organiser Dave Watson was joined in giving evidence and slamming PFI at the finance committee last week by Educational Institute of Scotland assistant secretary Ken Wimbor and Jon Ford, the British Medical Association's head of health policy and economic research.

Their organisations represent tens of thousands of local authority and public service workers and health professionals, plus teachers, lecturers and doctors - the people whom the public pay to actually deliver the services in the buildings which are funded out of the public's money, whether by PFI or not.

I would hope that the committee was in serious listening mode.

UNISON set out its five-point alternative to PFI, which involves reviewing existing PFI contracts, no new contracts under PFI, awarding government capital grants equally to all projects irrespective of the method of procurement, introducing prudential borrowing for health boards and strengthening the public-private partnership staffing protocol to help protect terms and conditions.

"Evidence is stacked against PFI," Watson told the committee. "The public have said they do not want it and it is time to say 'no more'."

Who can disagree with the public on that?

Well, Labour has done so far. But, despite former finance minister Andy Kerr's protests that PFI has delivered for Scotland, what it delivered for Labour last May was an electoral kicking.

The SNP still appears to want to proceed with the dressed-up version of PFI which is the Scottish Futures Trust.

But, as Dave Watson pointed out to the finance committee, "if the Scottish government can conclude that public funding provides the best value for money for the massive new hospital campus at Glasgow's Southern General site, why can this not be the approach across Scotland?"

The answer is, it could. Ending PFI and replacing it with proper public funding would be both popular and efficient.

The real question is, which of the two main parties in Scotland needs policies like that the most?

A woman's right to choose

SUPPORTERS of the right of women to choose on issues to do with their own bodies have been in a majority now for some time, after many decades of campaigning.

Yet, time and again, opponents of that right attempt to deny it in whatever way they can. The anti-abortion amendments to the Human Embryology and Fertilisation Bill being voted on by MPs at Westminster on Tuesday attempt to lower the time limit on abortion.

Among the bodies which are opposed to any lowering of the time limit are the STUC, the TUC and the main trade unions, as well as the British Medical Association, Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, British Association of Perinatal Medicine, Royal College of Nursing and the Westminster government's own Department of Health.

It is important that these amendments to limit abortion rights are defeated. There's still time to lobby your MP.

Abortion Rights Scotland is organising teatime demonstrations on Monday night in Glasgow's George Square from 5.30pm and at the Mound in Edinburgh from 6pm to publicise the campaign to defeat the time limiting amendments. Bring placards, banners and friends.

Contact abortionrightsscotland@yahoo.com or check out abortionrights.org.uk for more information on the campaign.

Another instalment of Labour in Wonderland

THE answer to the question in my main piece is Labour, by the way. Here's another Wonderland scenario.

On Thursday May 15, the Holyrood Parliament voted for the reinstatement to the Scottish budget of £30m attendance allowance annually which has been withdrawn by the Department of Work and Pensions in Westminster.

The cut took place after Scotland adopted a policy on free personal and nursing care for the elderly in 2002. That policy was introduced by the then Labour-led Scottish Executive. It has been very popular.

The recently published independent review of free personal and nursing care under Lord Sutherland argued strongly that this money should be reinstated.

Scottish Labour, now in opposition, initially agreed to back this recommendation. But, last Thursday, Scottish Labour MSPs voted against the call for the return of the annual £30 million.

Explaining this reverse, Labour shadow health secretary Margaret Curran said that Labour had "consistently argued that the resources should come to Scotland."

However, she claimed that supporting the SNP and Scottish Labour's own view in a vote to that effect would allow the Scottish government to "use that as just an attempt to get into a narrow dispute with London."

I would say that, if you have a clear and correct position, it's better usually to just put it, rather than vote against it. Voters don't appreciate or even understand that kind of logic.

If the voters don't appreciate or understand you, you're in trouble.

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Around Scotland - Monday 12 May 2008

Published in the Morning Star

(Monday 12 May 2008)

MALCOLM BURNS reviews the latest goings-on in Scotland.

I'm as bemused as anyone

AS bemused as the next political hack. That's what I have been telling people who ask me what I think of Wendy Alexander and the sudden emergence over the last week of the independence referendum question.

Your correspondent filed his copy last week about the membership of the cross-party Calman commission on devolution and how it was essential to broaden the scope of the public debate to include mature and serious consideration of issues including independence, as the STUC decided unanimously in Inverness last month.

And I then went off to enjoy and report Glasgow May Day. It was good fun too, thanks. I like the indoor venue at Glasgow Fruitmarket. I miss Glasgow Green, but only when it's not wet, as it often is on May Day.

I came back home later to find that Alexander had torn up the no-referendum script with her bold call to "bring it on."

It was as though she had taken seriously the absurd title of her flimsy think piece pamphlet published before Labour's Scottish conference in March, Change Is What We Do. Yes, that's the conference where she claimed to lead a "socialist" party.

If the intention was to "harry" the SNP and put it "on the back foot," it clearly didn't work. The best-laid plans gang aft agley and this wasn't one of them.

Alexander may get a little incidental kudos for seeming to stand up to Gordon Brown, not Alex Salmond. And, if the independence option is now to be discussed seriously, that will be good.

Knee-jerk nationalist-bashing is no use any more. The SNP is no socialist panacea, but it is engaging with many issues which appeal to Labour support.

As Vince Mills pointed out in Thursday's Morning Star, the issue is not really about nationalism, it is much more about class.

It is unlikely that there will be a vote in favour of independence even if a referendum does take place. The problem is that there are no popular left-wing shots in Alexander's new Labour locker with which to actually outflank the SNP on basic issues.

Until that changes, the gloomy electoral prospects for Alexander and Labour are unlikely to change either.

The fury is rising

AS we are now seeing among workers as diverse as civil servants, coastguards, Remploy staff, teachers and even police, there is a lot of discontent around this summer.

Yet another strike ballot, this time of Scottish local government craft workers, is due to close today. The main focus of the unions is on the issue of equality.

Thousands of plumbers, electricians and skilled building trades workers employed by local councils in Scotland still work a 39-hour week. Their colleagues doing the same jobs for councils in the rest of the UK work 37 hours per week. And other local government workers in Scotland won a reduction to 37 hours with no loss of pay five years ago.

The Scottish craft workers also want a pay increase greater than the 2.45 per cent offered by employers' body the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. Again, this is an issue of equality as well as the cost of living. Other Scottish council workers have received better pay settlements.

When workers consider taking action, as the Ineos strike showed, it is not done for frivolous reasons. Equal pay and equal working hours are questions of fairness and justice. And justice denied means that things can only get serious.

Dundee's Spanish civil war connection

DUNDEE Trades Union Council has been running a historical project Dundee and the Spanish Civil War to mark the 70th anniversary of the conflict.
Its research has uncovered not just fascinating information about local volunteers - more than 60 went from Dundee to fight in Spain among the 500 from Scotland - but also unusual stories like the Basque refugee children who came over to Montrose after the bombing of Guernica.

DTUC secretary Mike Arnott tells me that the aim is to rededicate Dundee's Memorial to the International Brigade, following its reinstatement in the city's Albert Square.

This should happen in October, to coincide both with Dundee hosting the International Brigade Memorial Trust AGM and with the publication of the research project as a finished document.

Dundee TUC has launched a financial appeal to help pay for the project and publish the findings.

The work of the project can be seen at http://groups.msn.com/DundeeandtheSpanishCivilWar and you can contact Mike Arnott at Dundee Trades Union Council, 141 Yarrow Terrace, Menzieshill, Dundee, DD2 4DY or email dundeetuc@hotmail.com to offer financial support or find out more. No pasaran!

Shelter strike fundraiser

SCOTTISH Shelter workers are planning a party in Glasgow on Thursday to boost funds following their recent 48-hour strike action.

It's at one of my favourite venues for seeing local unsigned bands in Glasgow, Box on Sauchiehall Street near Charing Cross www.myspace.com/boxglasgow. Going under the moniker STRIKE BACK!, the night promises to be an excellent way of showing solidarity.

Solidarity is certainly needed. Shelter's management plans to force workers to sign new contracts increasing the working week by 2.5 hours without additional pay. It comes to something when a large publicly subscribed charity which aims to help the vulnerable starts acting like the worst kind of private-sector employer.

Mind you, as I have noted before, the Scottish public-sector environmental agency SEPA has behaved badly in similar vein and its hugely browned-off workers across Scotland have also just voted overwhelmingly for industrial action.

Shelter Strikers party features the The Phantom Band, Jumpers Knee, Figure 8, Richie Gallacher and more, plus DJs until 3am. Doors 7pm and £5 entry, with all donations from the event to support the Shelter strike fund. You know where you should be.

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Thousands stage massive Glasgow march

Published in the Morning Star

(Monday 5 May 2008)

by DANIEL COYSH and MALCOLM BURNS in Glasgow

GLASGOW played host to a massive May Day march and rally on Sunday, with trade unionists and speakers paying tribute to the city's long tradition of workers' activism.

Over 3,000 people joined the event organised by the Glasgow Trades Union Council.

They marched through the city's streets from George Square, led by pipe and brass bands and bearing a multitude of trade union, socialist, communist and political banners.

After the colourful march, activists packed into the Old Fruit Market for a lively "Maydaze" rally, which was addressed by a range of speakers from the trade union, peace and labour movements.

Scottish TUC youth committee chairwoman Jenny Duncan said that young workers were standing alongside their older colleagues as they "take on and beat the unacceptable face of global profit," while Glasgow MP Ian Davidson paid tribute to 150 years of Glasgow Trades Council, with its "proud record of taking up progressive causes."

Mr Davidson said that the local TUC had been "at the forefront" of campaigns on unemployment, housing, rent strikes, education and industrial disputes.

He added that "Glasgow MPs who voted against Trident's replacement were encouraged by the knowledge that we had the support of the local trades council and local unions."

Scottish CND chairman Alan McKinnon argued that the "third wave of CND" had to take place in the wake of September 11, the "war on terror," the Iraq and Afghan wars, the Missile Defence System and "Britain's decision to replace Trident."

Mr McKinnon said that opposition to the Trident plans encompassed 60 per cent across Britain and was stronger still in Scotland, where "the people, the parliament and the government all oppose it."

Senior Unite official Agnes Tolmie brought greetings from the union's women's committee and noted that, after 30 years of equal pay legislation, there was still a gender pay gap of 19 per cent.

She demanded "mandatory pay audits" for firms to "stop employers from being let off the hook" on pay justice.

The speeches were followed by musical entertainment from Dougie Maclean, La Sonera Calaveras, Arthur Johnstone, Gordeanna McCulloch and there were also arts, crafts and storytelling to be found among the various stalls in the market, plus martial arts and African drumming workshops.

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Around Scotland - Monday 5 May 2008

Published in the Morning Star

(Monday 05 May 2008)

MALCOLM BURNS reviews the latest goings-on in Scotland.

In for the long haul

THE 15 members of the Calman commission were announced last week.

You'll remember that this is the body which Wendy Alexander hopes will spike the SNP government's "national conversation" over powers for the Scottish Parliament. Endorsed by the majority opposition in the Scottish Parliament and, with much reluctance, by Gordon Brown, its remit specifically excludes any mention of independence.

The 15, who will be presided over by Sir Ken Calman, a former chief medical officer, included some people I have never heard of and, given that it is a Lab-Lib-Tory affair, a few of what you might call the usual suspects.

On the Labour side, it includes what Alexander will hope are two safe pairs of hands - former lord advocate and Scottish Lib-Lab cabinet member Colin Boyd and the amiable rightwinger Lord Elder, who used to be Murray Elder and was Scottish secretary of the party in the 1990s. Yes, he is an Elder statesman of the Brown Labour Party.

Another former big knob named is Lib Dem Jim Wallace, the ex-deputy first minister.

The list also includes London-based chief executive of the Tory Telegraph group and long-time opponent of the NUJ Murdoch MacLennan, another amiable right-wing peer in Tory Lord James Douglas Hamilton and CBI Scotland director Iain McMillan.

So far, so clubbable.

Among the members who add gender and ethnic balance is Glasgow University Islamic studies professor Mona Siddiqui.

Adding a twist of youth and what Alexander might imagine to be celebrity given his win on Big Brother is the also amiable but broadly apolitical "politician" John Loughton, president of the Scottish Youth Parliament.

Only one trade unionist has been allowed, but at least that is the estimable UNISON Scottish secretary Matt Smith, who should strongly represent the long-standing and democratically agreed position of his own union and the STUC for much-increased powers.

As a senior member of the STUC general council, Smith is closely involved with the current STUC initiative to lead a new constitutional convention which could break the logjam threatened by the authors of both the Calman commission and the national conversation.

The Brown-Alexander sponsored Calman commission is due to present an interim report by the end of the year and final recommendations next summer.

If it is to produce any more than a Brown mouse, Smith surely has his work cut out.

Blame lies with Brown

WE watched helplessly from north of the border as another Labour election disaster unfolded on Thursday, much as comrades down south must have looked at Scotland a year ago when the SNP won.

It is true that Ken Livingstone has always been one of the most partisan critics of Scottish aspirations for self-determination. The reason for this escapes me and had I been in London I would surely have given Ken a vote.

In fact, when he first stood for London mayor as an independent, having been stupidly excluded from Labour by Blair and Brown, he benefited from a cash donation by yours truly, a Scottish Labour Party member.

I can only commiserate with Red Ken that my uneasy Scottish compatriot the Prime Minister almost single-handedly undermined Livingstone's Labour mayoral campaign with his 10p tax band attack on the poor.

Gordon Brown has wilfully persisted with the Thatcherite and Blairite policies which are increasingly driving away Labour's core voters north and south of the border. We all pay the price.

Firm's business as usual

I WAS glad to see Rangers obstinately nil-nil their way to a European football final as their two-leg-plus-extra-time marathon culminated in a penalty shoot out victory against Fiorentina on Thursday night.

I am neither the greatest football fan nor a chauvinist, but I do like to see Scottish teams do well in Europe.

However, I will spare you the platitude that this is "good for Scottish football." Rangers and Celtic are good for little but Rangers and Celtic.

The bigoted baggage that they still carry, especially the undoubtedly heavier Rangers baggage, is good for nothing at all. And they dominate Scottish football beyond the point of tedium.

The last time that another club won was Aberdeen in 1985.

I'd happily trade the Old Firm to the English Premier League as part of any devolution or independence deal.

That would give us a Scottish football league where you didn't know who was going to win from day one.

Meanwhile, the Old Firm fans could look forward to welcoming the likes of Manchester United and Arsenal to play regularly against their teams up here in Scotland. Or Northwich Victoria and Rushden and Diamonds, if they had to work their way up from the lower orders down south.

Sadly, this side of the revolution it will never be, comrades, because, as it stands, the money does the talking and it says no. But we can dream while we are waiting.

Upside down world

AS FAR as I can see, the Ineos workers should really be getting a hell of a lot more than they are paid and City fat cats are worth nothing.

This is not just prejudice.

I merely point out that, when the Ineos workers stopped working and went on strike for a couple of days last week, the whole of society started to grind to a halt.

In contrast, it was precisely because the City whizzkids had actually done some "work" creating smart-arsed credit "instruments" for which they continue to pay themselves unholy millions that the financial world started to collapse, as Mervyn King almost told the Treasury select committee on Tuesday.

If you ask me, it's time to turn the world the right way up.

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